


Let Us Skim

by Ann_O927



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 00:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann_O927/pseuds/Ann_O927
Summary: Ernst had always worried that Hanschen was the sun in his dysfunctional solar system. And despite his memories of moonlight and vineyards and the promises of skimming off cream, he makes the choice to end what he thinks is unhealthy.It's been some time since Wendla's death and all of the children have already grown up. Now they all try to learn how to live with their new adulthood.





	1. Chapter 1

The sound of heavy breathing made Ernst open his eyes. His head turned to the sound, his chin reaching over his shoulder. The noise belonged to Hanschen, who now stopped his hasty running. The boy stared at the younger, eyes wide and hands on his knees as he attempted to regain his breath. Ernst simply watched him as his chest heaved up and down and he finally tore his gaze away.

“Hanschen,” Ernst said, the name falling silently on his lips in surprise. His presence should not have been such a shock to him, and he hated that he did not already expect this.

“Ernst,” Hanschen responded. He stood now, regaining his natural composure. He walked over to the boy and sat down next to him. They both noticed the tension in the other’s muscles, neither did anything about it.

Ernst broke the silence before it had fully set. He sighed before he said, “I’m sorry, I know this is your spot.”

“Don’t be, I should have expected you.”

Their idle conversation did not continue after that, much to Ernst’s distress. He knew this was not a time for casual chit chat, but whenever Hanschen seemed to accept his stillness and refuse to speak a word he could not help but feel unpleasant. So he decided to speak even more.

“I did not think you cared for Wendla or Moritz so much.”

Hanschen seemed to suck in his breath at those words, his lips pursed. Ernst could not identify the emotions behind it. “We were not best friends, I’ll admit.” He brought his gaze to his. “But do you really believe I am so emotionless?”

Ernst stiffened then, especially when the stone in Hanschen’s eyes seemed to soften in dismay. He decided to spurt out, “No, of course not-”

But Hanschen saw right through his eagerness to comfort him. “It’s fine, Ernst.” As the blonde boy looked away Ernst couldn’t help but notice how transparent he was, in his voice, in his face, in his entire disposition. This wasn’t the brick wall, the facade that he had come to know.

“It’s just-” Hanschen breathed, “Two of them. In such little time.” His body shivered slightly, whether from the moment or from the breeze Ernst couldn’t tell. But he did realize that this was the first time he had ever seen Hanschen as what he was, a fifteen-year-old boy. Not a man who spent his cynical days skimming metaphorical cream. The sight nearly uneased him. Hanschen continued, “I had made fun of Melchior, of the fact that his philosophical ideas of life had turned on him, and that perhaps his religion was the wrong one the whole time. But now-” His eyes squinted, Ernst wondered if they were watering. “I see the same has happened to me. Wendla Bergmann had done nothing wrong, she was the perfect child of the system. Nothing happens to good, law-abiding citizens.

“At least-at least, I didn’t think anything was supposed to happen to good, law-abiding citizens. What happened to Wendla was that she became a product of the world we live in, and that’s a bad thing.” Hanschen trembled. “I always knew that our world isn’t perfect, but I always thought their flaws were something I could overlook.” He shook his head before bringing it into his trembling hands. “I can’t overlook this, I can’t pretend I’m fine.”

Ernst was unsure of how to react to this. He had never seen the boy so emotional and he froze. Ernst tried to escape his confusion and did his best to help him, though he didn’t know how. “I-uh-Hanschen-”

“First Moritz,” Hanschen gasped, “then Melchior. Then Wendla. Who next, Ernst? I thought it had been so long since all of us had played pirates together, that now we are different. But we’re not. We’re all still playing in the same game. I cannot pretend that I am above them, I am in their position. I could be next.” He released his head and laughed bitterly. “Melchior was stupid and curious, Moritz was stupid and curious, Wendla was stupid and curious. I am no different.” Hanschen turned to Ernst’s shocked face. “Neither are you, Ernst.”

Ernst’s eyebrows furrowed. Not in confusion but the fact that he seemed to know what the boy was leading to, and he seemed to know that his not-yet said words would hit him in a place nobody but Hanschen could. His voice was testing as he said, “Hanschen-”

“Look at us, Ernst. We are products, too. Our whole lives we’ve felt urges we’ve never understood, we got the chance to test them out and we pretend that we’re the exception. Melchior didn’t get away with it, neither Moritz nor Wendla, but we think we can.” Hanschen’s face was red, he seemed on the verge of exploding. Though Ernst did not show it on the outside, he was on the brink himself. “We can’t, though. Don’t you see that we are but a hair away from fucking everything up! The system will never work for people like us, it will never work for me! I’m never going to get what I want in life, all I can do in the end is pretend that I enjoy what I have. Nothing will ever satisfy me.

“And there’s no point in indulging while I’m young so that in thirty years I’ll have something to look fondly on. What if we get caught, Ernst? We can’t pretend that’s not a possibility-”

“Hanschen, please-”

“I hope in the end you didn’t mean it when you told me you loved me,” Hanschen sputtered in what seemed like sobs, but his face was dry. “I hope that you meant it when you said you wanted a wife in the future and libraries and children, because maybe then you’ll be satisfied. Satisfied in the little you have, because even if you try to play along like Wendla did you’ll still never be able to actually be happy. You’ll still never-”

“Enough!” Ernst stood on his feet, desperate for distance. For some time now he had held the pestering thought that Hanschen, the seductive blonde boy who fed him grapes and sang him songs, was the center of all his problems. He was the sun in Ernst’s dysfunctional solar system. If any prior interaction hadn’t proved him right yet, it was this. The last thing Ernst needed was Hanschen himself telling him that he was the sole cause of all of his issues. That maybe if they hadn’t decided to study Homer in the vineyard, if Ernst hadn’t been so naive to allow Hanschen to walk him home, if they hadn’t kissed, they wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Hanschen stared at him with wide eyes, there was a shine there. Perhaps from tears that refused to fall. “Have I become too pessimistic for you?”

Ernst nodded, he wrapped his arms around his body and tried to steady himself. “Yes, very.”

Hanschen looked away, “Then I apologize.”

Ernst watched him in confusion. His hair seemed to be miraculously slicked back into place and his gaze was certain and at ease as it hit the setting sun, the veins that once threatened to pop out of his forehead were gone, his body was still. It reminded him of all the times he would watch Hanschen in awe during gym class, in awe of the way he could run a mile heaving and searching for breath but then brush himself off and smile confidently a minute later, looking as if all the sweat had vanished from his body. Like the entire moment before had been completely erased.

“I’ve been thinking, Hanschen,” Ernst started, breaking the silence of the moment.

“Yes,” the boy replied, facing him.

“Before I go on,” he paused, taking a quick breath to assure his nerve. “This,” he made a subtle gesture with his index finger between the two of them, “was it, perhaps, an experiment?”

“An experiment?” Hanschen raised an eyebrow.

“Like a test,” Ernst swallowed. “It was, I think, for me. A test. Just to know if I had really been feeling what I thought I had been feeling.” He fiddled with his hands. “When I said that I loved you, I think, uh, I think I was just thinking of all the times-of all the boys throughout my life-the forbidden fruit I so longed for. And for the first time, I didn’t hate myself for it. You made me love it, Hanschen.” He shook his nervous head. “I don’t think I meant I loved you, I was just so happy. That someone felt the way I did, that I wasn’t treated as I feared I would be for it. I was giddy.”

Hanschen nodded. “I assumed you were. I didn’t decide to take it personally.”

“I could tell,” Ernst said all too quickly, pretending it still didn’t hurt him. “But this-this was just a test.”

“I suppose.”

“I doubt it would hurt either of us if-” Ernst licked his lips, they were chapped. “If we ended it.”

Hanschen was silent for a moment. Ernst did not know if he was hurt or if he was only contemplating. What would he contemplate? What was there to contemplate? Their relationship was straightforward and blunt from the start of it. After that one slip up during their first kiss, there were no more love professions. They hardly spoke much after that day. The next time they met up, no philosophical ramble about the meaning of life greeted Ernst, just some forced chatter and then Hanschen’s greedy hands pulling him down into a kiss. It could not even be called passionate, it was hot and desperate but there was not enough emotion for passion to be present.

From then on Ernst knew that this was everything he should have feared from the moment Hanschen asked to walk him home. It was cold, teenage desperation. A longing for something forbidden that they’d finally obtained, but nothing meaningful. There was no substance to whatever they had. It was a while until Ernst stopped crying after their meetings. Maybe Ernst never really loved him, but he appreciated the warmth Hanschen provided. Hanschen, on the other hand, clearly did not love him, and the only thing he did appreciate was whatever unholy thing Ernst allowed himself to do to him. It stung.

“Alright,” Hanschen finally said.

There was a feeling in Ernst’s stomach, an indescribable one. It reminded him of sadness just as much as it reminded him of relief, it burned like anger but it flowed like peace. It was a mess in there, and Ernst wanted to cry but his chest felt light and his throat wasn’t tight. So he repeated, “Alright.”

Hanschen nodded and turned away, it was obvious he had no intention of leaving. Ernst nodded to himself and headed off. He tried to keep his pace a little hasty and a little slow, not sure what to feel.

Despite their strained relationship, Hanschen always walked him home. Ernst, though slightly sad by the lack of affection shown in their encounter, was always a little gleeful from the fervid interaction they shared. He would feel as if he was drunk on the moonlight and would wobble through the cobbled streets, dancing like a madman on the lamps. Hanschen would laugh and take his arm, Ernst would pretend that he wasn’t being tender intentionally so that if anyone were to see them they would think they were two friends and not teenage lovers. They’d prance a bit and then sing sometimes and they would always laugh and Ernst would always snort.

The memory made the lightness in Ernst’s chest lift away. It made the emotions in his stomach jerk instead of flow. It made his throat tighten. He quickened his pace as he walked home, his arms swinging wildly.

His mother wasn’t in the sitting room as she usually would be, thank God for that. He hastily made his way up the stairs and fought the urge to slam the door behind him as he collapsed onto his bed. He sat still for a moment and his mind felt as if it was clouded with fog, but in a peaceful way. For a split second, he felt at ease.

But then his mind remembered moonlight and vineyards and the promises of skimming off cream.

Ernst viciously brought a pillow to his face to muffle his sobs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So another chapter! Like I said, updates may be very sporadic but I'll try to keep them as consistent as possible

Melchior was back in school. He returned a week after Wendla’s funeral. There was gossip that he had intended to attend it, but his parents advised him that it would be wise not to. That was undeniably true, Melchior’s god complex, lack of religion, and major fault in Wendla’s death would make him terribly unwelcome.

Hanschen found himself uncharacteristically stiff, not uptight or haughty like usual, but completely rigid. And not only for the gloom, and awkward, affair that was Wendla’s funeral, but for the weeks that had followed the announcement of her death. He hoped that his constrained disposition didn’t have anything to do with Ernst’s “break-up” with him the other day, but he couldn’t deny that it had been heightened ever since then.

They avoided each other at school. Or rather, Ernst avoided him like the black plague. Every time Hanschen came into his vision he’d perk up and walk the other way. He would always grab the arm the friend next to him and lead them away and Hanschen hated the heat that would spring in his stomach at that. He hated how self-aware he was of his jealousy even more.

He had become so used to letting his facade of “entirely unapproachable” slip away once him and Ernst began their relationship. He suddenly had someone to talk to during class breaks and someone to walk home with and someone he could ask his other peers of. It all slipped out of his fingers too soon and the realization of how lonely he was dawned on him. He had never cared so much about how little socialization he had before that moment. And he found himself missing interaction. Specifically, missing Ernst’s interactions. And all at once life had become more depressing that he could have ever imagined.

Hanschen was alone, and, for the first time ever, he could feel it. 

And that was why he sat next to Melchior Gabor in class.

Hanschen could feel the boy’s gaze on him, burning like he had committed an unforgivable crime. He turned to Melchior and gave a cheeky grin, “Hello, Melchior. How are you?”

“What the hell are you doing?” The boy spat.

Hanschen laughed. “Not too good, I see.”

“Seriously,” he pressed, not at all amused, “why are you here?”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“I want to know why you’re sitting next to me.”

“You act as if I hate you.”

“I thought you did.”

Hanschen clicked his tongue. “Well, now, that is obviously not the case, as you can see. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay-”

“Don’t ask me-”

“I wanted to rekindle our old friendship. You and I were such pals. We’re meant for each other, Melchior. We’re both cynics, we both hate everyone. Remember back when we were children and we would read bible scriptures and laugh?”

“Look where that got us,” Melchior mumbled.

“Yes, look where that got us. The two most intellectual boys in school. Fortune favors the doubtful.”

Melchior practically snarled. “You’re sick.”

Hanschen was taken aback. “Me?”

“No wonder you have no friends.”

Hanschen rolled his eyes. “That is so amusing coming from you, Melchior. When you should know by now that everyone hates you.”

“Why are you here?” Melchior asked again. “To humiliate me? To make me hate myself? I can do that on my own, thank you.”

“I’m here because you and I could be good friends.”

Melchior just stared at him for a while, his hazel eyes wide with surprise. His eyebrows furrowed as he said, almost accusingly, “When did you ever want to have friends?”

Hanschen scoffed. “Honestly, what do people think I am? An atheistic hermit?” He rolled his shoulders and put on a face of disbelief. “There are psychological damages done to the brain if one constantly lives in solitude. Who doesn’t want to have friends?”

“You,” Melchior said. “You don’t want to have friends, you never have. What’s the sudden change?”

“Well, I-”

Voices flooded the classroom then. Warm, familiar ones that involuntarily pleased Hanschen’s ears. He couldn’t stop himself from turning to the sound. He saw Ernst and Georg making their way through the doors. Ernst noticed his staring and looked back, it was cold and perfunctory.

Hanschen immediately avoided the eye contact and turned to Melchior. “I’ve just had a recent epiphany, a look-back on my life. I didn’t really enjoy what I saw.”

Melchior eyed him suspiciously, then he glanced over at Ernst, back to Hanschen, then back to Ernst as he sat down at a desk. “You really are sick.”

“I have no idea what-”

“So what happened?” Melchior asked. “Did he realize what an asshole you were?”

“Honestly, Mel-”

He leaned into Hanschen. “Since when were you two ever friends?” His gaze crossed over to Ernst just one more time, Hanschen’s did the same. They both noticed Ernst laughing at something Georg said, Otto sat behind him and joined the conversation. “I don’t recall you two ever hanging out.” 

The three boys talked animatedly, Ernst smiled. Hanschen did his best to will away the heat but it ignored his efforts and stayed. He just watched Ernst and desperately hoped that he could talk to him. That he could make a joke and see that smile up close, and be able to touch it if he wanted to. He wished he could pull him away and feverishly kiss him against a wall, trail his hands up his sides, slip them under his shirt. He wished he could whisper obscene things against his skin.

Hanschen shook away the thought and replied, “Your head was too far up your own ass to notice.”

“So you were friends?” Melchior asked.

Hanschen pursed his lips and squinted his eyes. “Something like that. As you said, I’m not really a friend type of person.”

“But Ernst stopped hanging stopped hanging out with you and now you are?”

He lowered his voice even more, hoping that Melchior would take the hint and stop speaking so loud. “Well, he helped me discover certain things about myself-will you stop staring at him!”

Melchior raised an eyebrow devilishly. “You seem so flustered.”

“I am not, I just don’t want to risk being embarrassed.”

“So you’re flustered?”

“Look, Melchior,” Hanschen began in a testing voice. “He doesn’t know that I-that I care, I suppose. And I like it that way. I don’t need him to think that I am dependent or that I need him to feel better about myself.”

Melchior rolled his eyes pensively and scrunched his face. “But, well, do you?”

Hanschen stared at him in disbelief for only a moment before answering in a tone that indicated the answer was obvious, “No. Why would I?”

“Well, you seem to have put a lot of thought into this.”

“I put a lot of thought into everything,” Hanschen said. “I make meticulous and elaborate plans that map out my daily life, Ernst certainly isn’t an exception. However, that doesn’t mean that I care about him an abnormal amount.”

Melchior laughed.

“You’re laughing.”

“You’re so defensive.”

“I am not!” Hanschen then paused and caught himself. He sighed and leaned away from Melchior, sitting straight and running his hand through his hair. “Well, it might seem so. I guess, well, I suppose that I have been acting and thinking in a queer way. But it doesn’t mean much, nothing ever has.”

“Whatever,” Melchior said.

“What, you don’t believe me?”

The boy shrugged. “Hanschen, I don’t care enough about you to believe.”

Hanschen only scoffed. By that time, the teacher entered the classroom and immediately began the lecture. Hanschen decided to mentally block all of his thoughts and focus only on his work. Usually, fogging up his mind like this worked and he would never be distracted. Even if he was, like the times he would sit next to Ernst and noticed how a certain curl fell on his neck or the specific way that his left ankle always needed to cross his right ankle, he still had enough clarity to be competent. But today it wasn’t working.

Perhaps he was going insane, but he could swear that there was whispering going on behind him. Some chuckles too. A good portion of those giggles belonging to Ernst. He turned his head several times throughout the lecture, only to see that must have been imagining things because everything was perfectly normal. But every time he turned back the whispers and laughs started up again and he was beginning to think that maybe he wasn’t crazy. And in one of the moments he looked behind him, Ernst was looking back.

Hanschen didn’t have it in him to look away, so he stared. Their gazes locked, like they were in a heated contest, deciding who would give up first. Ernst was emotionless, and eventually he glanced down and went back to his work. Hanschen felt something sink in his chest.

That pride he had when the younger had told him that he loved him, after only one kiss. The giddy that this was the effect he could have on people. That now he had a boy wrapped around his finger.

Oh, how he was mistaken.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first Hanschen and Ernst fanfic, I'm hoping to do more. I might update sporadically, but if I feel that people really enjoy my work I'll try to be more consistent. I will add more chapters
> 
> Thank you!


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